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Thursday, March 09, 2017

March 9, 1985

Last
week's Throwback Thursday post was fun. Let's do it again this week...and the next
week...and the next week after that even!

Now
for today's entry, I can reveal to you that it is music themed. But by now you all know the drill. It was the same as it was on Tuesday
Timelines and Wayback Wednesdays. We're
taking a look at the other significant events that took place on this date in
history first.

So, what happened on the 9th of March?
Have a gander.

1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais
marry

1841 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the
"United States vs. The Amistad" case that the captive Africans who
seized control of the ship that was carrying them were taken into slavery
illegally

1842 - The first documented discovery of gold in
California is made in Rancho San Francisco

Well, it's only 32 years ago. March 9, 1985. And I can tell you that this
was a date that particular song reached the top of the Billboard charts.

Unfortunately, it was released by a band that admittedly I'm not much of a fan
of. And the song that reached #1
thirty-two years ago is one that I believe has been played over and over and
over again.

(And no, the song wasn't performed by the Dave Clark Five. I actually like those guys. Plus, their heyday was twenty years before
the mid-1980s.)

However,
the song did stay at the top of the charts for three weeks. It was performed at the Live-Aid Benefit
Concert that took place in the summer of 1985.
And it was a song that was featured prominently in the 2008 film
"Horton Hears a Who!".

ARTIST: REO SpeedwagonSONG: Can't Fight
This FeelingALBUM: Wheels Are
Turnin'DATE RELEASED: December
31, 1984*PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 3 weeks.

NOTE: The star indicates that this was the release
date within the United Kingdom. In
North America, it wasn't officially released as a single until January 23,
1985.

Now, when one thinks of REO Speedwagon, you probably don't think of the group
being hard core rockers. If anything,
you might think them as the very definition of rock that is so soft you could
squeeze it like a ball of Play-Doh. I
know I certainly thought that when I first listened to them.

And again, I'll admit it. This song is
not exactly one of my favourites. If I
had to pick a song by the band (made up of Kevin Cronin, Gary Richraft, Bruce
Hall, Neil Doughty, and Alan Gratzer), I tend to like their 1981 hit "Keep
on Loving You" much better. I
think a part of that could be the way that it was overplayed on most radio
stations. I often wondered if this song
was the only song that they owned by the band.
That's how often it was played.

The fact that the song is also used in a comedic sense for parody films in
serious scenes also kind of turned me off of it.

However, I do appreciate the fact that the song exists - and not just because
it gives me something to talk about in this blog. No, I think that as time passes by, I start to understand why the
song became such a hit in the first place.
It's a song that most everyone in the world can relate to because we all
have had feelings for someone who started out as a friend or an acquaintance,
and no matter how hard you try to keep those feelings inside, sometimes you
just can't hold them in and you have to let them know. I think it's a situation that most of us
have experienced at one time or another.
And maybe that's the reason why this song was such a hit thirty-two
years ago.